Serum concentrations of sphingosylphosphorylcholine, an inducer of abnormal vascular contraction, measured by a high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry: the result from 132 healthy human volunteer donors

Abstract

In the last decade, we have reported that sphingosylphosphorylcholine (SPC) induces Rho-kinase-mediated Ca²⁺-sensitization of vascular smooth muscle contraction, thereby leading to vasospasm in vivo. Indeed, SPC concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid are much higher in vasospastic patients after subarachnoid hemorrhage than in non-vasospastic ones. Although coronary vasospasm is also of critical importance in ischemic heart diseases, the serum SPC concentrations were not examined in such vascular diseases. Therefore, as an initial approach to assess clinical importance of SPC in vascular diseases, we aimed to measure the SPC concentrations of the sera obtained from 132 healthy human volunteer donors on regular medical examination, using a high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry and a deuterated internal control (SPC-d3). The mean and range of serum SPC concentration was 8.02±0.14 nM (mean±s.e.m) and 13.25-2.76 nM, respectively. Furthermore, correlation analysis between SPC concentration and medical examination data supported the independence of SPC on other known parameters with low correlation coefficient of <0.28, although some of them showed statistically significant correlations (P<0.05). [J Physiol Sci. 2008;58 Suppl:S212]